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What’s in it for me? Discover the revolutionary power of objectives and key results (OKRs).

Have you ever worked for an organization that, if not entirely lacking a sense of direction, at least didn’t seem like it knew where it was going? If so, you certainly aren’t alone. Companies often have so many goals that they might as well have none at all, and workers are tugged in so many directions that they often feel utterly directionless.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

By having a handful of flexible, reachable and transparent goals, organizations can work together in an efficient way to achieve success.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

And OKRs don’t only allow companies to continuously update, track and rewrite their goals. They also encourage a growth-centered philosophy that is bound to help companies of all sizes rethink their management strategy, thus increasing their potential for greatness.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

OKRs were born at microchip giant Intel, where the author worked in the 1970s.

Such KRs had to be measured simply with a clear yes or no. Everyone involved – known as contributors – would have to be able to understand whether the KR had been met or not, without argument.

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OKRs allow organizations to stay focused on reaching their goals.

This brings us to the first of three important characteristics of OKRs: there should only be a handful of organization-wide OKRs at any one time. That way, everyone from top management to lower-level employees can stay focused on achieving a limited number of important goals – together. Next, once management has determined these top-level objectives, between three and five KRs are needed per objective to help everyone at the company know when each objective has been reached. Any more than this, and focus will become diluted to the point where progress is hard to measure.

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Having a transparent, aligned OKR system helps organizations move forward efficiently – and collaboratively.

One important aspect of OKRs is that they must be transparent to everyone in your organization

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OKRs are more than just the overarching business goals of an organization; teams, departments and individual employees use them for their own individual work as well. But once top-level and individual OKRs become part of an organization’s public domain, they must be aligned to truly succeed. This means that employees’ individual OKRs must align with the company’s vision, as set out in the top-level OKRs

17 March, 2020 01:31 Share

By constantly tracking OKRs, organizations can make sure that they’re heading in the right direction.

said for tracking your goals as you pursue them. In fact, a California study showed that friends who both wrote down their goals and shared their progress with friends on a weekly basis were 43 percent more likely to achieve their objectives. The same goes for organizational OKRs. Google, for example, usually has monthly sit-downs where employees touch base on how they are getting along with their quarterly OKRs. Not only is progress discussed; roadblocks are also pointed out and key results updated accordingly.

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OKR contributors: continue, update, start and stop.

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Implementing stretch goals allows organizations to truly excel.

Well, at Google, OKRs are separated into two distinct categories: stretch objectives and committed objectives. Whereas committed objectives usually have to do with day-to-day metrics such as sales or hiring, stretch objectives are all about bigger-picture ideas. And while committed objectives are meant to be met with 100-percent success, stretch objectives at Google fail about 40 percent of the time.

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

Coupling OKRs with continuous performance management will help bring about a transparent, healthy workplace culture.

CFRs are the OKRs of the HR world, and are all about having conversations with employees that entail both feedback and recognition. CFRs are a two-way street. Instead of the unidirectional annual performance review, CFRs involve conversations where real-time feedback and recognition go both ways. And, in the same way that OKRs replace annual goals, CFRs should happen regularly so that performance improvements can be made throughout the year.

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Final summary

Objectives and key results (OKRs) are a revolutionary tool that can help organizations reimagine their approach to management. As opposed to setting yearly goals, OKRs allow organizations, and teams within them, to continuously set, track and achieve goals in a transparent and accountable way. And when combined with regularly having conversations with employees about their performance – instead of once per year – OKRs can bring about a healthy and high-performance workplace culture.

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

As Google cofounder Larry Page says, "Put more wood behind fewer arrows." Steve Jobs was essentially saying the same thing when he remarked that, "Innovation means saying no to one thousand things."

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